Category: Diary Page 26 of 47

This week’s Friday Night Horror was brought to us by Henry James, although I didn’t realise that at the time. I’ve recently been researching lists of horror movies to build up a suitable selection box for Friday nights, and a 1961 movie called The Innocents–which I’d never heard of before–turned up more than once. I’m a big fan of black and white, 1960s horror (The Haunting is one of my favourite films) so I was definitely up for this one.

It’s a slow burner, but the hint of things not being quite right is there virtually from the start. An unsettling air of mystery is expertly layered on and builds right through to the disturbing conclusion. One of the things I like most about movies made in this period is that they bring a mix of modern and historical that works so well when a properly gothic atmosphere is needed. It may be a period piece, but it arrived at a time when cinema was just about to break out of the staid format it had rested in for the last few decades. Arriving roughly alongside a time when sexual liberation was also in the air also for some scenes that would be challenging now, but seem downright incredible that they made it to the screen over 50 years ago.

The Innocents is not necessarily a film I’ll be rushing to watch again–I want to savour that first viewing–but it’s proven to be something almost unique in our Friday Horror journey and I’m still surprised that it had never crossed my radar before now.

I got my new smart LED lighting strip today (destined to go behind the TV for some colourful ambient lighting) and it prompted me to throw up some notes about the various Bluetooth devices I’ve bought recently. Because it’s been a thing.

When I rearranged my bedroom some months ago, I found an old TDK iPod dock. It came with the old non-lightning connector, but I had a cheap Bluetooth adaptor to enable my newer iDevices to play music through it. I put it in the bedroom, figuring it might be good to have music every once in a while. It was pretty good, but I had to remove the Bluetooth widget whenever I wasn’t using it (otherwise I’d have this horrifically bright blue light shining at me all hours of the day) which meant a mildly tedious re-connection procedure every time I wanted to to play music. It was ok, but it was not perfect.

It started me wanting a proper Bluetooth speaker but I didn’t really want to spend a fortune, because this was only ever going to be for casual use. I eventually found a Logitech X300 on sale for $40. It looked pretty cool so I ordered one. When it arrived it was about half the size I was expecting, and had the sound to match. It wasn’t bad, but when playing it side by side with my existing TDK speaker there just wasn’t a match.

The hunt continued, until I found a website called Shopmonk. I’d stumbled across the site because of their cheap mobile phone prices, but they also had a Bluetooth speaker section … which featured just one model: a Harmon Kardon Onyx. It was $110, which was heading above my preferred budget, but the reviews were good and the typical retail price was considerably higher than $110–and if there’s one thing that’ll get my attention, it’s a bargain. So I bought it. And it was awesome. The battery life isn’t great, but it’s gorgeous looking and the sound is terrific. In fact it thumps with so much bass that I’ve had to resort to equaliser settings on my apps in order to tone it down a little.

With my Bluetooth speaker urge sated, I turned my attention to Bluetooth lights. I picked up a Magic Blue LED smart bulb to go in the front room (to replace the bargain basement LED bulb I had in there, with a remote control that allowed me to pick exactly five out of the supposedly 16 million possible colours). The Magic Blue bulb can be controlled from my iPhone, rather than relying on a tacky remote, which is pretty cool. Naturally, I then decided I wanted to get some smart lights for my bedroom, primarily because every single other bulb I’ve tried in there has been way too bright. I eventually picked up a three-pack of Tabu LuMini smart bulbs (which had the advantage of coming with the E14 fitting, which all of my bedside lamps have).

These weren’t so good. They work well enough when they work, but there’s quite a song and dance to get them to connect to the Bluetooth: some mystical and secret combination of turning the lights off, turning Bluetooth off on my phone, at least two minutes of really solid cursing, and various other secrets that I’ve yet to learn.

Of course, I’ve not yet set up my smart lighting strip so I can’t conclude this gripping narrative at this time. I can, however, share the irony that it’s wifi controlled, not bluetooth. So make of that what you will.

As a father of two young boys, and someone who was himself a young boy in the distant past, I’ve been exposed to my fair share of fairy stories over the years. We have a box set of Ladybird fairy tales that has earned its price back many times over–some of which are the same tales, with the same illustrations, that I grew up with.

Now, I have no issue at all with the more gruesome aspects of these stories. Indeed, the idea of sending a young child to sleep with images of evil wolves eating old ladies alive amuses me no end. However, I do find myself wondering about the values that the stories are attempting to convey. There are various questionable themes that come up routinely: women falling in love with princes for no reason other than they’re rich and handsome; our supposedly sympathetic characters making promises, only to break them again by the end of the story. And so on.

Tonight we read Rumpelstiltskin, in which a woman agrees to marry a greedy king who has previously threatened to kill her three times, and who later goes all out to break a promise she made to the titular character. I have to say I feel sorry for Rumpelstiltskin (even if his name is bastard hard to spell): he offered his services in good faith, and got shafted. These are not exactly positive messages that I want my children to take on board. What are we saying here?

• Lesson one: always marry someone who has expressed great enthusiasm for killing you;
• Lesson two: definitely marry someone who is clearly only in it for the money;
• Lesson three: if you make a promise that turns out to be a bit awkward later on, it’s just fine to weasel out of it.

This all makes me want to write some fresh versions of these tales. But it also makes me want to look deeper in the origins of the these stories, so I can understand why they were written, and how they’ve been reworked and remixed over the centuries.

Yeah, so, I’ll do that … one day …

We celebrated my Great Grandmother-In-Law’s 82nd birthday today. She’s not quite twice my age, but she’s definitely got twice my energy. She comes over every week for three days to do the laundry, keep the kitchen clean, iron my shirts, and do any other minor domestic chores. Perhaps most importantly, she keeps the kids entertained when I’m busy getting dinner ready, or sometimes when they’re on school holidays. I let her do all these things because (a) I’m not an idiot and (b) feeling useful and valued is (by her own admission) one of the things that keeps her going.

She’s quite an inspiration. She has her quirks (she refuses to have a mobile phone, for instance, won’t eat from plates that have birds on them…) but outside of that she’s one of the most ‘can do’ people I know–and it boggles my mind that she’s in her eighties. I suspect when I’m that age I’ll be sitting in my armchair demanding people bring me fresh cups of tea while grumpily complaining that the damn, new-fangled TV remote doesn’t work. But I hope not. I hope I’ll remember my incredible grandmother and remember that age is no barrier to getting up and doing things.

I had a heavy day today. I could feel it coming on during the drive to work, and sure enough it hit me later in the morning. I don’t know how to describe it other than everything feels like it’s physically weighing down on me: getting out of the chair is an extra effort … even sitting in the chair, I feel like gravity has decided to take it all out on me. I do my best to get through on autopilot, but sometimes it’s the sort of day where you end up having takeaway for dinner because the thought of preparing and cooking something seems about as achievable climbing a mountain.

Fun times.

They say that in times of crisis you truly learn who your friends are. I always used to think this meant that, when the shit hits the fan, that you find out which people are your friends and which people aren’t. But it’s not that simple. It’s about learning who your friends really are. People are defined by how they act and react–by what they do, rather than by what they say–and moments of crisis are when you glimpse behind the words and get to truly learn who a person is.

During this year I’ve learned that there are many types of friends. There are people you thought were friends, but are not. There are friends who forgive friends, and friends who don’t. There are friends who find themselves swept up in the current: some who get pulled towards you, some who get dragged away. There are friends who hold you up and, sometimes, friends who let you down again. A crisis forces people to act and, often, to choose.

We are reflected in the company we keep; both by the choices we make, and by the choices our friends make. Who your friends are tells you something about who you are. Friendships may start as a product of circumstance, but circumstances change and friendships are tested through these changes. The fracture lines from a crisis don’t spread out in an orderly fashion, conveniently grouping relationships together: they cross each other at seemingly random tangents, but eventually things will settle and you will be able to see which side of the crack people have jumped towards.

Friendship is a complex beast. It’s just about who you like and who likes you. It’s a fractured mirror that reflects back at you in a hundred different ways.

But, mostly, it’s awesome.

I had a Lazy Day today. It wasn’t a Do Nothing Day: it was a Can’t Be Bothered To Do Anything Day. I find these days a bit frustrating because I typically want to get something done–I don’t get much spare time,  I don’t like to waste it, and there’s always something that needs to get done.

These Lazy Days used to happen more than they do now, but I don’t bother fighting them anymore. I figure it’s the universe’s way of telling me to stop and take a break. So what if the kitchen cupboard doesn’t get tidied up? A lazy day means I’ll sit down and watch a movie with the kids instead which, in the end, is a far better use of my time 🙂

(No, you’re not going crazy: it’s not October 31.)

For our weekly Fridate Chiller, tonight we watched Halloween. I picked it up on blu-ray last week largely because I don’t currently own a copy on blu-ray and it seems to me that owning a copy of Halloween on blu-ray is the sort of thing that any horror/cinema enthusiast with their wits still about them should do.

It is, of course, still incredible. You can see the origins of the modern horror film throughout, via motifs that other directors would beg, borrow and steal–most often to far lesser effect. Oddly, you can also see how no one would ever make a horror film quite this way today: the acting is a little too staged, the camerawork is relatively unflashy. It lacks the high naturalism that is an essential part of modern cinema.

There were also things that I’d somehow never noticed before, such as the fact that Laurie Strode’s first encounter with Michael Myers happens in the house over the road (not the house she’s babysitting in), and the sound of heavy breathing whenever we see Michael’s POV.

Ultimately it’s a really sparse film, and that typical simplicity is something I love about the pioneering movies of cinema history. A similar movie made today would need at least five different trick endings, some self-conscious commentary about modern culture, and some sort of CG-derived panning shot from the POV of someone’s pumping arterial spray. Sometimes simple is good: it lets your imagination do the rest.

I had a lot of meetings today–some of which went well and some which didn’t–and they’ve reminded me again about structure and routine.

Routine is the scaffolding of our lives. It gives us structure and security. It is, I believe, what has enabled the Kinderbesten to ride out the collapse of my marriage. Because very little in their daily routine actually changed, they were spared the greater impact of it all.

Sometimes meetings a part of the routine of the day. For me, however, most of my meetings provide a break. They mean I’m not sitting in front of my computer screen all day. Sometimes this is good and sometimes it’s bad. Sometimes having too many meetings means I don’t actually get any work done; other times they offer a fresh perspective on the job and help to re-energise me somewhat.

Routine is good. It can take some–or a lot–of the cognitive load out of your day. But you should never let it become the prison walls around you. Sometimes the simple act of taking a different route to work, or having lunch at a different time, can be a refreshing change and prompt you to look at things a bit differently.

Writing the other day about work also caused me to reflect on my other “career”: writing stories (which is in no way a career). I’ve been doing this “properly” for several years now, which means nothing more than there’s a routine attached to it: I get up early almost every day and write for at least 30 minutes before I get ready for work. Before I wrote “properly” I would sit down on occasional evenings, when the mood took me, and attempt to write. It was not a hugely successful model.

To date I’ve had four stories published and have earned perhaps as much as one, or even two dollars (update: I received a royalty payment of $30 via Paypal about a week after writing this post!). Clearly this is not a career, but it is a passion. It is what I would be spending my life doing if I were able to choose.

That said, over the last few years writing has become something more than a passion. It’s a necessity. It’s become an essential part of how I start a new day, and has become one of my tools for processing the days that have already come and gone. When I don’t write I get angsty; when I do write I feel like I’m continuing to move forward.

My stories usually sit in the horror genre, but sometimes swing over to science fiction. From time to time I will write something oddball and unclassifiable. When I first start writing, I worried whether I would get enough ideas, whether I would have to hunt for inspiration. That didn’t end up being a problem: I have always had more ideas in my thought hopper (and thanks to the person who shared that phrase with me) than I’ve been able to write. Earlier this year, when all the shit was coming down, I stopped writing for a couple of months. I continued to get up and write stuff, and carry on with the morning routine, but I wasn’t writing fiction. For a few months I didn’t get a single new idea for any stories. I began to wonder if that was it. If the stories had simply stopped. If that was my PTSD symptom. Then I started writing again and the ideas started coming back. Once again, more ideas than I have time to write.

I have lots of good things in my life, but writing is literally the reason I get up in the mornings. It means I can start the day by creating something (even though those efforts can be frustrating at times). It means I can start the day with my head somewhere else, and not focusing on what I’m going to wear to work, or how long it’s going to take the Kinderbesten to get ready for school. And it means I get to start the day doing one of my favourite things: making shit up.